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The annual Ursa Major Awards have opened for nominations for the best furry content for the 2021. You may enter your nominations here. The categories up for nomination this year are listed below. Be sure to get your entries in before February 12th.

• Best Anthropomorphic Motion Picture
• Best Anthropomorphic Dramatic Short Work
• Best Anthropomorphic Dramatic Series
• Best Anthropomorphic Novel
• Best Anthropomorphic Short Fiction
• Best Anthropomorphic Other Literary Work
• Best Anthropomorphic Non-Fiction Work
• Best Anthropomorphic Graphic Story
• Best Anthropomorphic Comic Strip
• Best Anthropomorphic Magazine
• Best Anthropomorphic Published Illustration
• Best Anthropomorphic Game
• Best Anthropomorphic Website
• Best Anthropomorphic Costume (Fursuit)

A large list of recommended items from each of these categories can be found here if you are looking for examples of work within each category. You may select content that is not listed on this recommended list as long as it was published or created in 2021. You may also only nominate work for categories you are familiar with and leave the rest without entries.

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On January 11, 2022 Dylan Reeve published an article for The Spinoff entitled Who Runs the Internet? Furries. Within the piece he talks to individuals within the Information Technology industry within New Zealand about their hobby of being a furry on the internet in their spare time.

Articles about furry fandom have been increasingly less hostile toward the group since the more darker periods of CSI, MTV, and Vanity Fair in the earlier 2000s. Because of this, this particular article would have come and gone without too much notice, but then someone used its content to spin a rhetorical argument to promote their organization's cause.

In response to the piece, a political organization called the New Zealand Taxpayer’s Union made a loud objection to what they classified as pro-furry propaganda on the government dime. There were many oddities about their response. For one, the Union’s response called for ‘debate’ within the article, but never specified what about the article could have lent itself to confrontation. They seem to insinuate that the furry in the article was part of some far left cabal without evidence, which is why they may have seen need to confront the individual interviewed. There was
also insinuations such that the journalist in question should have collected information on the private New Zealand citizen to forward onto the authorities. Something I’m sure would not be a waste of governmental resources.

However, in this article we will focus on the thing they, as a Taxpayer Union, should probably be most concerned about— fiscal waste. After doing calculations with all available numbers, and even some provided by this supposed government watchdog organization, I found that the amount that the New Zealand government spent on the single article in question is 136.48 ($US). This is 6 billionths of a percent of New Zealand’s total Gross Domestic Product (0.000000006%).

More details about this calculation after the fold.

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With temperatures down, and entertainment options becoming more and more—homegrown, let's say—it's a good time to catch up on that new-to-you material that aligns with your interests. Here are two of those lesser-known but deserving properties, marketed toward youth. For those of you who were sold on The Secret of NIMH, Redwall, and everything in between, at first view.

Mistmantle Chronicles

The Mistmantle Chronicles by M.I. McAllister has jacket flaps that compare it to The Wind In The Willows and Watership Down, although as you can see from the first installment's cover, there's much more of a Redwall yen in this series. As they say, though, DON'T judge a book by its cover, as the experiences of brave squirrel Urchin on the titular island carry their own identity. This flies in the face of origins that speak to many favorite role-playing games, as he evolves from his discovery on an empty beach to his eventual destiny in foiling a royal coup.

Camaraderie and species characteristics also run heavy in this, as in Redwall, however there is a noticeable amount of personification of reactive emotion and atmosphere as well, where dread and evil are given concrete outlines. Given my frequent mention of the property in the paragraph, you can gather the audience to which Mistmantle speaks. Dig on into this if you're part of that audience, since Miramax has purchased movie rights [albeit in 2004], and some sort of photo-play is probably not far off.

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It is well known to many Flayrah readers that there is at least one of our contributors that has a habit surrounding a game by the name of Fortnite. They usually write reviews for movies and not games, so this is no big deal. That third person battle royale shooter was a spin off of its inspiration PUBG: Battlegrounds. Given its more stylized graphics and quirky building mechanics, Fortnite became a powerhouse and caught on in the consumer markets much to the chagrin of those who like the more realistic and rough stylings of PUBG.

But if it’s anything that the battle royale genre teaches you, it is that just because you’re the first to hit the ground, doesn’t mean you’ll be the last one standing.

Regardless, if there is one thing for sure most of this site’s target audience can agree on is that neither of those games is really “furry”. Sure there are skins in Fortnite that let you dress up and you can write an article listing them out for the fur-curious gamers playing it, if you really want to. But it is very certain that the characters fighting it out in the battle in these games are very much homosapiens. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Luckily for furs in 2021, a new battle royale game was released officially that may appeal more toward the anthro enthusiast. Super Animal Royale is a game of genetically modified animal folks fighting it out in a dilapidated Disney-esque amusement park called Super Animal World to try and be the best of up to 64 contestants thrown into this battle of the death by being the last animal standing.

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As a new year comes upon us, the article which has served us from the start of the pandemic to this point in keeping track of closures and cancelations of furry gatherings shall be put to a close. That article with historical information around closures for the pandemic from the years of 2020 through 2021 can be found here.

Unfortunately we are not through our long night in these woods quite yet as recent news from Further Confusion has shown. They will be postponing their gathering due to the a new wave of the virus. Therefore this, like the prior article, this will be used as a archive for 2022 conventions who need to close or suspend operations for the year.

Last updated July 20th 16:22 ET. Latest update description: Further Confusion announced to restart in 2023

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As the world started to show recovery in 2021, the giving nature of the furry fandom also has shown a rebound from the shock of 2020. This year furs raised a total of $727,748.23 for various organizations, an increase of 31.2% from the prior year's half million total.

The video breakdown of each of these events was provided by Thabo Meerkat.

A spreadsheet of the data can be viewed here.

Contributors this month include dronon, earthfurst, GreenReaper, and Rakuen Growlithe.

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Nominations for the 2022 Good Furry Award are now open! The award, which is administered by Grubbs Grizzly of the "Ask Papabear" furry advice website, is given annually to a furry who is active in the fandom and demonstrates outstanding community spirit and proves themselves to be a positive role model for all furries.

The award premiered in 2019, when the late Tony "Dogbomb" Barrett won. This was followed in 2020 by Ash Coyote winning, and last year Cassidy Civet won.

This year, Grubbs is asking nominators to submit not only text as to why their favorite furries should win, but also photos or videos of their nominees. A video presentation will then be created and presented on YouTube and (hopefully) a certain well-known furcon.

You can nominate people through April 2022 and voting will be in May. Votes are cast by members of the furry community, so the award will go to furries who are selected by their peers. The winner receives a pawsome trophy and a $500 cash prize. There are also 3 honorable mentions each year who receive trophies.

To learn more about the Good Furry Award, go to https://www.askpapabear.com/good-furry-award.html.

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Toon violence is a strange form of affection within the community of toony furs. Dropping anvils, hitting people with mallets, or slamming someone with a meringue pie are all par for the course. However, recently this community has found that the machines overseeing them cannot discern this toony culture amongst the social media landscape. Confused algorithms have recently started to take the violent jest seriously.

This was found out by a toon furry by the name of Aster in late 2021 as Twitter suddenly brought down the hammer to his account. With no warnings, or any form of communication, the toon bunny character found himself unable to access the social media of choice of most furries on December 7th, 2021. Aster himself is quite a prolific tweeter stating he believed himself to have made one hundred and two hundred tweets within the last few weeks before his account’s termination.

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Sing 2 opens with the cast and crew of Moon’s Theater putting on a pop-musical stage adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. Alice is played by the elephant Meena (voiced by Tori Kelly), the Mad Hatter is played by the gorilla Johnny (voiced by Taron Egerton), and the Cheshire Cat is played by a pig named Rosita (voiced by Reese Witherspoon), which seems like a bit of miscasting to me. This performance is particularly important, because in the audience is a talent scout, a saluki dog named Suki (voiced by Chelsea Peretti) who could get them an audition to perform at even bigger venues.

Anyway, she leaves about halfway through the first act.

The theater’s owner and director, the koala Mr. Moon (voiced by Matthew McConaughey), tries to stop her, asking her what she thought of the show. She replies that it’s fine, really good local children’s theater production, but just not what they’re looking for. When Moon implores her to tell him, really honestly, what she thinks, Suki sighs and asks him if he really wants to know.

Because the honest truth, she says, is they’re just not good enough.

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Editor's Note: This article was also published in DogPatchPress and was dual submitted by the original author. In discussion with DogPatch, it was decided to follow the author's wish to post this piece to both sites, but editing credits go to Patch from DogPatchPress. If you read it there, it is the same here, minus these respective editor notes. Furry opinions are, apparently, quite fungible.

Cryptocurrency isn’t a new thing to a lot of people. Most safely assume that it’s a common matter to discuss by now. From one trend to another, it seems like the over-publicized success stories, scam emails, and ads that badger you to invest or download this or that app never stop coming. Yet while furries are notoriously well versed in technology, for most of us, it’s just background noise. Spam, business con tactics, and maybe hearsay from the friend of a friend who invested; it all sounds almost good enough to break through our skepticism… but not quite.

However, early in 2021, things suddenly changed. A digital work from Mike Winkelmann (AKA Beeple), entitled ‘Everydays: The First 5000 Days’, sold for $69.3 million USD. It was entirely unexpected for most of the online community, and the term NFT exploded like crypto did before it.

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In three hours over $20,000 dollars have been raised on a GoFundMe campaign looking to save a furry operated bakery. The business, Lazy Fox, has been operating for a year in Thermopolis, Wyoming. Their fundraising page goes over the story of their first operating year transforming the empty lot that used to belong to “The Front Porch” into the Lazy Fox.

The urgency to raise funds was brought on by the property being foreclosed on due to their current landlord they are renting from falling behind on payments. Nels and Ian fear the land their business resides may now be at risk of going to a new owner who may disrupt their current operations. They had planned on buying it out from the landlord eventually when they were settled and their business established. But the current circumstances have accelerated their desire to own the land their bakery sits upon, ready or not.

Their goal of $130,000 is the amount it would cost to buy it with little to no debt. Nels and Ian indicate they do not expect to reach that amount, but the more they can raise the less they will need to rely on debt to finance this dream and own the building and equipment outright.

Whether they reach the goal is far from certain, but furries on social media seem very determined to help bring in the bread for this small town bakery.

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On December 11th, a Blue Origin flight will be making a journey to space. Aboard it will be Laura Shepard, who is the daughter of the first American to fly to space, Alan Shepard. But given this is a furry news site, one of the paying passengers has piqued more interest within fandom circles. Cameron “MeepsKitten” Bess, a modest furry content creator of around 2,500 subscribers on YouTube, Twitch, and Twitter, will be riding aboard with his father, Lane Bess.

The video "I'm Going to Space" on MeepsKitten’s YouTube channel shows how he is both excited and anxious about this opportunity. He discusses how he plans to bring the paw of his fursuit along with a pansexual flag, which is his sexual identity, with him on the spaceflight.

Update: Due to high winds forecast, the flight has been delayed from December 9th to December 11th.

Contributors this month include 2cross2affliction, dronon, earthfurst, GreenReaper, and Rakuen Growlithe.

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Hello and welcome to the November episode of Digging Up Positivity. October and November are traditionally busy months filled with all sorts of conventions and events, and boy does it show in our overview. We got a lot of fundraisers for various charities all over the world this time! Which brings us to our featurette: Joe G. Bear, our American friend who is one of those wonderful people behind Team Tony, one that is working so hard to raise funds against this terrible disease of ALS [Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis]!

But first we have the other charity news, followed by some animation news including Disney’s Zootopia+ and of course after all of these things, we will find out who has won that wonderful Thabo Meerkat T-shirt ‘I am just a mere kat’.

So now, on with the show!